


caught me staring when i thought you couldn't see

by bellaestrella



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fate, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:37:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaestrella/pseuds/bellaestrella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>louis is the last remaining great fate. he can see everything that has ever been and will ever be. so who is harry styles and how did he sneak up on louis?</p>
            </blockquote>





	caught me staring when i thought you couldn't see

Louis smiled to himself as he strolled down the street. Today had been a good day. He’d seen two couples fall in love, and he knew they were going to last. Even after all this time, the thrill of finding new love was still so exciting to him, and he hoped it would never get old. He ducked into a coffee shop and took a seat by the window. He wasn’t in any hurry. It had been a long time since he had felt this happy and he just wanted to savor the feeling before he had to go home. He hated his home now. It was too cold, too lonely, ever since his sisters had disappeared.  
Once upon a time, they had been the Three Great Fates. He and his two sisters had ruled the whole earth, controlling anything and everything that happened and making things occur just to their liking. There was nothing in the world that happened without them knowing. Those had been the happiest days of Louis’ life. He loved his sisters, his home, his life. He watched over the humans carefully, and never wished for anything. Until one day. He was walking down the street, idly wondering what he was going to do next and suddenly he felt freezing, a feeling he wasn’t familiar with. He was a deity, they didn’t get cold; they didn’t feel things like lowly humans did. He felt as if one of his lungs was missing, a huge chunk of him ripped out. He literally doubled over in pain in the middle of the street, but of course everyone passed by without noticing. He was only visible when he wanted to be, and right then, he wanted anything but to be seen. What was this feeling? Why was he in so much pain? He fled home as soon as possible, but found it bare, his sisters nowhere to be found.  
He looked for them for months, of course, or at least he thought it was months. Human time was so hard to keep track of. It could’ve been years for all he knew, he wasn’t about to give up easily. He heard the wailing of the people as everything in their lives went wrong. Soulmates went unfound, opportunities were not taken. The humans didn’t know what to do without fate, nothing seemed to go right. But Louis couldn’t find it in himself to care. His sisters had gone missing, and he didn’t think he was able to go on without them. He sulked in his home, watching the world go by, and neither rejoiced nor sorrowed in the fact that the humans were suffering without his guidance.  
The first person who caught his attention was a small child. Louis stared apathetically, noticed her playing in a park on a sunny day. She ran down a narrow path chasing a butterfly or some imaginary thing in her head when suddenly she tripped and fell. She tumbled down an embankment and started to wail. Right then, a man walked by with his dog. It was a coincidence that he happened to be there at that moment. It was fate. But he kept going, indifferent to the sobbing child down the hill from him. He continued on, and the child continued to cry, and it seemed to grow louder and louder in Louis’ ears until suddenly it was unbearable. He leapt up and was down in the park in an instant.   
All of a sudden, the man’s dog got loose. The leash flew out of his hands and he ran after his pet in a hurry. The dog ran straight to the little girl, and as the man caught up, he seemed shocked to see her there. “Good thing I was right nearby,” he said, soothing the little girl as he picked her up. She paid no attention to his words, focusing more on pouting as he tutted over her scraped knee. But Louis heard, and that was enough. He had a job to do, and although he would never get over the loss of his sisters, that was not enough reason to condemn the entire human race to a lifetime of sorrow.   
\---  
It was the second day Louis was following Liam. Sometimes when he got too overwhelmed with the whole world’s problems, he took a step back and found a single person to focus on for a little while. A boy named Zayn caught his attention, and so Louis started following his every move for a few days. Zayn was in his first year at uni, and for the most part he kept to himself. He ate by himself, he walked to class by himself, he studied by himself. He didn’t seem to mind being alone at all, in fact it usually seemed like he was somewhere far off in his head and didn’t even notice when other people were talking to him. The only exception to that rule that Louis could see was his best friend, Liam.   
Liam and Zayn had grown up together, living right next to each other since birth. In year 1, Zayn said he wanted to have a husband when he grew up and was punched in the mouth for that. He never said a word about it and hid the bruise from his mother, but Liam came over every day with whatever he could find in his freezer to reduce the swelling until the mark was gone. In year 7, Liam was attacked by his teammates on the track team for being friends with such a “useless bum boy”. He avoided Zayn for two weeks until he was met one day after school by an angry black-haired head popping up over his doorstep. Liam cried for the first time in his life while apologizing and Zayn was so taken aback he forgave him right away. In year 10, Zayn got his first boyfriend, an older bloke in uni and was gone all the time with him. He stopped going to school, snuck out after his mum went to bed almost every night, and started smoking cigarettes. When he inevitably had his heart broken by the cheating bastard, Liam held him as he cried and choked back the “I-told-you-so” that was dying to come out of his mouth. Everyone at their school knew what had happened, and Zayn didn’t make it much better by refusing to wear anything but black for months and sighing melodramatically every few moments in class. But no one dared say a word because Liam was always right behind him, with a comforting hand on his back but death threats in his eyes to anyone who made fun of his best friend.  
They graduated and both were headed off to uni. Originally, Zayn was going to art school in Dublin, and Liam was staying to go to school at the University of London, studying sports medicine. But after the first semester, Zayn was too miserable to continue and he transferred to the school Liam was going to. He insisted nothing bad had happened at the other school, and that he just changed his mind and wanted to study English literature instead. Liam thought he was lying but had no proof.  
It was painfully obvious to Louis from the very moment he set eyes on Zayn that the boy was in love with his best friend. When he first saw him, he was sitting in the quad of the school, pouring over Shakespeare. Liam was sitting next to him, fiddling with his mobile because it was nice outside and he can’t concentrate on schoolwork when the sky is such a nice shade of blue and there’s a breeze that isn’t cold wafting through the air. He always gets his work done on time; Zayn actually doesn’t know how he does it since he never sees the boy working whenever they’re “studying” together. He must stay up all night, but that’s not it either, because he’s always going on about health and how getting enough sleep is crucial to the body and having a regular sleep schedule is very important. He always grumbles whenever Zayn creeps in his room after midnight, whispering the stars are pretty that night.   
“They’re always pretty, Zayn.”  
But he always goes because he would never deny a request from his best friend, and he sits and tries to listen to Zayn wax poetic about the stars and how they’re far away but they’re really actually close until eventually Liam has had enough and gets up and walks back inside without a word, leaving Zayn yelling for him to come back because he wasn’t done.  
Zayn was crouched over his book, so close his nose was almost touching the pages. Liam sighed and got up, and immediately the other boy’s head snapped up. “Where you going, Li?”  
“I’m hungry, gonna go get some food. Wanna come?”  
And if either one of them had seen what Louis had seen, how quickly Zayn snatched up his things and stumbled to his feet to follow, they would have known how obviously in love he was too.  
\---  
As Louis drifted into the café where Liam was chewing a sandwich enthusiastically and Zayn was only sipping black coffee, he mused that this could be one of his sister’s works. Relationships like this did not just happen; these two were the prime example of a work of fate. He felt a pang in his chest that he would never know which of his sisters had set this up, but soothed it away with the reminder that he was going to finish her work.   
He fluttered around, gazing at some of the other students. He forgot what it was like to be human. All the chatting, teasing, laughing, gobbling food, just normal things. Even when he and his sisters were in their prime, happy and doing whatever they pleased, they weren’t really like this. It didn’t come as naturally to them. Once, a while ago, Louis had gotten obsessed with that fact.   
“I want to be like them!” He screamed one night after he came home from a college party his sisters disapproved of him going to.  
“Why would you ever want that?” Penelope had asked. Even though they technically were ageless, since they had all been around from the start of the universe, they found themselves fallen into assigned roles. Penelope was like the eldest, taking charge whenever the other two were unsure, and always making sure her sister and brother were taken care of, fed, rested, whatever need be. Alice was content to play the middle child, quiet and in the background while the other two fought it out. She only stepped in when their tempers threatened to cause problems, but she didn’t like to make a fuss. And Louis became the baby. Spoiled by his two sisters, he was the one most likely to throw a tantrum, but he also was the one with the biggest heart. He was a sucker for romance, one of his favorite things to do was watch people fall in love. Penelope focused more on strictly business things like deciding how each person would die. She took no pleasure in it, but knew it was a matter of fate and neither of her two siblings were going to it. Alice delighted in the beginning of life, the pregnancy and actual childbirth that occurred. She visited every single newborn baby, cooing over them invisibly as she decided the course of their life. But Louis’ soft spot was watching people grow together. Meeting, getting to know each other, growing old together, it was all just so enchanting to him.   
He lamented that he would never get to experience that, and slowly the idea grew in his head that he should try his hardest to be human. If he acted human, maybe the human emotions would come naturally to him after a while. His sisters didn’t understand it, but they would never get in the way of something their brother so desperately wanted. He started hanging around schools, never going to classes but just sitting in the canteen, walking across the quad, hovering in the parking lot. Shedding his traditional white robe was the hardest thing for him to get used to, but eventually he even grew to love the rough feel of denim and the weight of long sleeve flannel shirts. He observed the students closer than he had watched any other humans, and soon some popular kids got it in their heads to invite him to their parties. He loved them, all the bad music and gross beer. He thrived on it.   
When he had come home that night, he tried to explain it to them. He tried to get them to understand how much he loved humans, all their imperfections and messy mistakes. The thousands of different personalities and the way every single one of them were unique. Penelope had shaken her head sadly and Amy only smiled faintly her seat in the corner. Louis shook with rage and, disappearing from the cave, fled to his precious earth. That night there were a record number of deaths in countries across the world when he decided to relieve Penelope of her duty for the night and pulled soul after soul from innocent bodies. He mourned for three weeks after that, the loss of his beloved humans that had suffered for no reason but his own stupidty. His sisters never spoke of it again.   
Zayn was sitting idly as Liam chatted on and on about some big football match that was that night. He said his friends were going to be there, and of course Zayn agreed to go even though he didn’t like to play that much. He’d probably just sit and watch, he liked watching Liam play. Liam was good, built strong and durable for sports like that. Not like Zayn, who was so skinny he looked like he would fly away if the wind hit him wrong. Liam had always loved sports, all types, running and football and even rugby. And his best friend had been there for most of them, he even gave playing them a try before realizing running in circles and getting pushed down in the dirt isn’t as fun as it may seem.  
They headed down to the pitch, and Zayn took up residence on the sidelines. He pulled out his sketch book, drawing a quick cartoon of Liam scoring a goal and showed it to the boy, who was stretching beside him. Liam laughed delightedly before looking up and waving to the lads coming down.  
Louis was sitting a few feet from them, hovering indecisively, unsure whether he wanted to appear friendly and go ahead and let himself be seen or if he would prefer the comfort of invisibility. He chose the social route and uncovered himself, smiling gently at Zayn, who looked slightly startled when he realized there was a strange boy very close to him. Louis didn’t mind though, it was nice sometimes to be able to relax and not worry about staying hidden. “Hey, I’m Louis,” he offered quietly. Zayn smiled back and introduced himself before returning his attention to his drawings.  
He glanced up to see who was coming. The first boy was a blonde boy. Niall. Irish. Same age as Zayn and Liam. Louis turned his attention away after he found all the necessary information about him.  
“Hey, lads!” He called when he was close enough. Some other boys tromped past, throwing their stuff down and running onto the pitch. Niall hung back. “I brought my friend Harry with me, hope that’s okay!”   
Liam nodded his consent and they headed to meet the others. Louis turned back to see this mentioned friend and saw…him. A head full of ridiculous curls, legs that were too long and gangly to look as good as they did, arms covered in tattoos that seemingly had no pattern. Louis’ eyebrows furrowed as he tried to locate him in his head, but nothing came up. This boy was nowhere on his radar, no information anywhere.  
“Er…Louis?” Zayn’s head had snapped up and he was looking around wildly. In his surprise, Louis had turned back to his natural state of invisibility. He got up, unseen, and stumbled away. Who was this boy? How did Louis know nothing about him? He fled the scene and returned to the safety of his home, but still watched over the scene. The game was nothing special, not that Louis would really be able to tell. His attention never left that boy, that Harry, that caught him so off guard. That had never happened before, and it could never happen again. This Harry was dangerous and he had to stay away from him.


End file.
